A press release arrived in my inbox earlier today with the following headline “Oscar’s Best Picture is Now the Best Family Film of 2011 as The Weinstein Company’s The King’s Speech PG-13 Opens Nationwide on April 1st”. Yeah, it’s a mouthful and it also came with this following quote from Weinstein’s President of Theatrical Distribution and Home Entertainment Eric Lomis:
“We are thankful to the MPAA for their wisdom and swift action in approving the release of The King’s Speech PG-13 release. The action enables those to whom it speaks most directly – young people who are troubled by stuttering, bullying and similar trials — to see it.”
Yup, it’s all smiles at The Weinstein Co. as their Best Picture winner will attempt to secure a whole new audience… But will it work and does this really make it the “Best Family Film of 2011”?
I have included the one offensive scene in the film that earned The King’s Speech an R rating directly above. It’s not safe for work considering the abundance of uses of the word “fuck” and according to Deadline the film was able to earn its new PG-13 rating by replacing “fuck” with “shit”.
It was originally assumed the offending word would simply be muted out, but after instances of the film being rated by the MPAA it would seem like they went back and reconsidered this strategy and instead changed the dialogue.
The R-rated version of The King’s Speech will be removed from theaters entirely and on April 1 the PG-13 rated version will hit 1,000 theaters across the nation. Following that the DVD and Blu-ray will be released on April 19.
